Gay Marriage: The Pigeon's Response

Got some good commentary on the Gay Marriage open thread last week: 

Antitool writes:  "There doesn't need to be a constitutional amendment defining marriage--it's outside of the federal government's purview. If the state of California wants to marry gay people, great. They can also process the inevitable gay divorces. There are much more important things going on."

MOGS writes:  "I don't think a court has the right to arbitrarily redefine marriage, but I also don't think constitutional amendments (even at the state level) are an advisable way to deal with this."

Brian writes:  "The thing that disturbs me most about it is that the courts overturned the will of the people. How can 4 judges have that much power over the lives of millions who voted against the very measure they just overturned? Put the measure to the people or their ELECTED representatives and let them decide..."

As promised, here's my response:  morality is not a constitutional issue.

Personally, I don't care if a gay couple wishes to marry, let alone that they're gay in the first place. 

As mentioned somewhere on this blog several years ago, a good high school friend of mine came out of the closet when I was a senior.  Up until that point I'd been the quintessential homophobe, but his coming out made me realize I had two choices:  continue hating what I feared, or open my mind and accept it. 

I chose the latter.

Since then I've become 100% convinced homosexuality is biological in nature; it can't be helped, it can't be stopped, and anyone who claims it can be changed is smoking pigeon droppings.  In addition, 10% of the human population is allegedly gay, and years of sticking our collective heterosexual heads in the sand hasn't dented the percentage. 

Of course, 18 years and many conversations later I still don't fully understand how a man can be sexually attracted to another man... I mean, I can't fathom why women are attracted to men!  And although I don't hate someone for being homosexual it still makes me uncomfortable to see members of the same sex engaged in public displays of affection.  In other words, I can rationalize my understanding, but emotionally it will never make sense.

That said, if a gay couple chooses to marry, buy a house, and pay their taxes just like the schleps next door, who's it hurting? 

From a constitutional standpoint, I'm with Antitool and MOGS:  the government should not be in the business of legislating morality.  I also feel the same way about abortion and flag burning... hell, I don't even like the city telling me when and how to mow my lawn.

In short, the should never, NEVER be a state or national amendment that TAKES RIGHTS AWAY.  That's like slapping ol' lady liberty in the face.  I understand gay rights, abortion, and [insert firebrand social issue here] strike people at multiple levels of morality, emotion and reason:  but such issues are for individuals and families to decide, not governments.

As for judges overturning the will of the people, the state or national constitution IS the will of the people--once ratified Judges must rule on the words as written.  It doesn't matter if all 30 million or so Californians vote to approve something if what they approve violates the state or national constitution (the power of the judiciary is worthy of a whole post, which I'll save for another time).

Of course, if the people chose to change the constitution the judiciary cannot stop them; but is that what we really want, to turn a governing document into just another piece of paper? 

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... I've sworn my life to defend a 7,591-word document; and that means defending rights, not limits.

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Comments

[rightwingprof]

I don't think the Constitution should be abused for social engineering on either side. The one time we did that we ended up amending it again to repeal it. But that aside, I agree in general that the GOP have damaged themselves, but I disagree with many pundits and bloggers on why. Those who think the GOP went soft on social issues has not paid attention to opinion polls over the years; in fact, the GOP public image started to decline sharply right after the Terry Schaivo fiasco, and has continued down since then. The GOP places too much emphasis on red herring issues such as flag burning amendments, human life amendments, and the marriage amendment -- "red herring issues" is someone else's term, I prefer to call them what they are, pandering, since no politician believes there's a chance in hell of any of these amendments ever being ratified.

As long as the GOP lets the "Don't sell sex toys in our state!" faction set the policy with no regard to what anyone else in the party thinks, the brand will continue to deteriorate.

[MOGS]

Amen. I always looked at that part of the party as the "too much time on their hands" branch, and hold them in much the same esteem as I hold people who support racial/whatever hiring preferences, hate crime legislation supporters, and the like. Get. a. better. issues.

Beyond that, I'll come right out and say it, I don't support the idea of gay marriage. Civil unions I'll discuss, and yes I think there is a distinction, and it's an important one, and it goes back to my "courts should not arbitrarily redefine institutions like marriage." I think though this is a state issue, and if you don't like how the state goes, try to change it or friggin' move. That's why we don't have internal passports.

Constitutional amendments for social engineering create problems where none existed, or the cure is far worse than the disease.

On top of that, the "social actions" wings of both parties need a refresher course in "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS"